Dr. Eric Mussen from UC Davis discusses patterns of CCD spread that suggest it is an infectious agent of some sort, not pesticides. Mentions a large organic beekeeper who apparently got hit after a migratory beek moved his colonies nearby.

to me, this makes the most sense. since no agent was identified in the historical cases of CCD like die offs, we will never know if this is something new, or a mutation of the prior culprit. in some ways, this is a positive. living things tend to develop immunity, and in the end are stronger for having survived the culling by disease.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

the bees still come in close contact as they pollinate. the cross the same flowers. drink from the same water.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I lost 10 out of 10 hives this past year. 8 of them were just gone like they all just left but no honey or brood was left either and 2 got weak enough that the hive beetles took over. Since I did not check on these hives but about every two weeks, it is hard to draw a definate conclusion. I just installed 3 new packages and the breeder I got them from said they lost very few hives. Like 50 out of 800 but they use checkmite... My big problem is hive beetles. I have tried everything but so far, nothing works well and each hive will have hundreds of the little %%#&#'s.

[quote author]... discusses patterns of CCD spread that suggest it is an infectious agent of some sort, not pesticides. Mentions a large organic beekeeper who apparently got hit after a migratory beek moved his colonies nearby. [/quote]

This is all fine and dandy.... Time will tell, I hope?

But, the same can hardly be true for the rest of the world!? Other countries are affected/suffer from CCD.Countries/regions have this and they DO NOT transport their hives or practice migratory beekeeping even remotely. In most countries that I am familiar with, transporting is simply out of a question financially and any other way one wishes to address. So, what and how does this malady reach them? Nionic's and other stuff are present there though - perhaps it is a "staging platform" of sorts, which sets up the colonies for CCD???

Is this CCD thing "airborne" to reach places where being mobile is not even customary for average people - much less for beeks..?

Perhaps being a mobile operation is only a "faster" way to get there - for lack of a better term/explanation?

could be something that is carried by other insects, but does not kill them. they just pass it on. who knows. disease makes a lot more sense than most of the other ideas that have been put forward.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

But, it would have to be some tough m...... insect, cause butterflies, bumbles, hummingbirds, etc, are also disappearing - although they don't get as much "airtime" as bees do. And they all have one thing in common - they feed on flowers?

Now, bats are/were dying all winter and apparently they didn't feed enough/too much on insects which in turn fed on. . .

About the organic beekeeper losing bees after a migratory beekeeper had been in the area... With CCD the remaining bees (queen, bood, drones and a few young and nurse bees) have every virus known to attack a bee with a weakened immune system plus up to five kinds of fungii that show up in bees with a weakened immune system. It seems logical that the sick bees intermingling with the other colony could have transported God knows how many viruses and fungii to his hive. I would also like to know if fipronil or any neonics were used within five miles of the organic beekeepers hives and what crops were growing within five miles of the hives. Also how does he test his honey to make sure he is still organic? As far as I know there is no testing of honey in the US so the individual has to get some entomologist with the testing equipment to do that.

Please see my new comments under the section of CCD. Germany just banned two neonics for killing off bees. It is unclear to me if this new bee die-off has CCD symptoms or if they return to the hive weakened and dying. Nontheless imidacloprid has been proven in French tests to have been the cause of massive bee losses.

the insecticide may cause bee die off. i would guess that most insecticides would be harmful in some measure, to bees. however, the use of this insecticide in different countries does not appear to match the incidents and time line of this CCD occurrence. CCD like disappearances and bee die offs seem to by cyclical. the historical causes may be many.

Logged

.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....